T'Other Side: Wakefield Trinity

       

Head Coach: Daryl Powell

The vast majority of Fev fans need no introduction to Daryl Powell who was head coach when Fev won the Championship League in 2010, 2011 and 2012. He left Fev to take over at Castleford in May 2013, but the team he had built was strong enough to complete a fourth successive League win under the stewardship of Ryan Sheridan, Danny Evans and Sean Long.

He moved from Cas to Warrington in 2022 and has taken over at Wakefield this season.

Daryl played primarily as a halfback or centre although he did also play occasionally at loose forward. He started at Sheffield in 1984 (their first season) and later also played for Keighley and Leeds (where he was also head coach from 2001 until 2003). At representative level he played for Yorkshire, England and Great Britain.

It is a bit ironic that Daryl, who was born in Ackworth, has now coached all three of the Wakefield District clubs but never played for any of them.

 

 

Captain: Matty Ashurst

 

A Second Rower, he was born in Wigan but his first club was St. Helens where he made his début in 2009. After 3 seasons at Saints he moved top Salford in 2012 and then to Wakefield in 2015 and this is his 10th season there. He became the Wakefield Captain at the start of 2023.

Loan players and dual registration

None as far as we know.

 

The Fev connection

We know of more than 160 players who have appeared for both Fev and Wakefield. Each week we pick out some of the most notable ones who have played for both clubs. However, we try not to repeat information about players so, for instance, we have not included John Willie Higson because he featured in this section for our earlier match this year against Hunslet a few weeks ago.

Gary Coooper joined Fev from Featherstone Juniors in 1958 and made his début at the age of 19 against Bramley. Remarkably, for a youngster, he played no less than 33 games that year, all of them at fullback. He made a total of 186 appearances for Fev, scoring 43 tries and kicking 9 goals. At the end of the 1965-66 season, he left Fev and joined Wakefield where he played for a further 4 seasons.

Don Metcalfe (together with Ryan Hall) had the unusual distinction for a rugby league player of having a degree in mathematics. He was a Maths lecturer at Wakefield College. In 1951 Fev signed him from Sandal Rugby Union as cover for our fullback (Freddie Miller), but Don actually played the majority of his games for Fev in the centre. In the 1955-56 season, and still only 23 years old, he captained both Rovers and the Yorkshire team. He played 149 games for Fev scoring 55 tries. In April 1957 he was transferred to Wakefield Trinity where he went on to play a further 212 games.  

The connection between his family and both Wakefield and Fev goes far beyond Don himself. His great-grandfather T.O. Bennett played for Wakefield in the earliest days of the club. So, too did both his grandfathers, Jimmy Metcalfe Senior and E.W. Bennett and his father, Jimmy Metcalfe Junior. And Jimmy Metcalfe Senior also played for Featherstone Rugby club in the 1890s.

 

Gary Price (we are referring to ‘Gary H’ not ‘Gary S’) was a Wakefield lad and joined Trinity as a youngster and went on to make his début for them as an 18 year old in the 1987 season. Before he joined Fev in 1993 he had already played for both Great Britain U21 and the full Great Britain team. He had two seasons before he signed for South Sydney Rabbitohs in 1996. After a year in Australia he returned for two further seasons and then went back to Wakefield in 1999 where he remained until he retired at the end of the 2000-01 season. In the 2004 season he was the Rovers head coach.

The two Gary Prices are a nightmare for statisticians, and were for commentators, as they both played second row, were at Fev at the same time, and in many matches they were playing side by side in the second row!